What Livebookings can offer the restaurant industry

27th July 2009, 4:04pm

Top industry organisations such as Gordon Ramsay Holdings and lastminute.com offer Eat Out readers an insight into how their businesses have benefitted from using the Livebookings initiative, and continues to do so today.

Online marketing and reservations service, Livebookings, offers restaurateurs advice on getting the best return on investment for their website, general best practice and the basics of search engine marketing.

The scheme's academy, which launched in April this year, follows a step-by-step guide on how to effectively promote a restaurant to the right people, at the right time, and with the right message, using a selection of online marketing tools.

The latest event, which took place last month at The Smollensky's Bar and Grill in London, saw industry experts such as Olivia Fitzgerald, Livebookings UK and Ireland general manager, and Paul West, who used his time to talk about Smart Web Design, take to the stage.

Anneliese Hainz, reservations director at Gordon Ramsay Holdings, explained how the group has progressed since clubbing together with the system: "Livebookings has helped transform the business, enabling us to slash unnecessary overheads and maximize bookings efficiently across the Gordon Ramsay Group. We most certainly wouldn't be able to achieve the same levels of efficiency without it."

In 2002, the reservations team at Gordon Ramsay's Claridge's shared just one PC and received up to 500 telephone enquiries per day, all of which were noted down with paper and pencil. Moving forward, Hainz knew that modernisation was going to be key to driving the business forward: "To capitalize on our growth, we needed a new, more modern and efficient booking system. Livebookings Loghos provided this and gave us the opportunity to become more streamlined."

And the result? In total, 92,300 covers have been taken via online bookings over the last year alone across the group (last updated May 2009).

Hainz continued: "Handling this amount of enquiries in addition to telephone calls and emails from guests efficiently would be practically impossible without the Livebookings online reservations facility. Rather than keeping guests waiting for calls or emails to be answered, we are able to harness the best technology available, resulting in a faster, more efficient service."

Meanwhile Mark Bower, UK lifestyle sales director of lasminute.com, said that they have benefitted by customers purchasing higher margin products: "Livebookings has been a great customer acquisition tool. Over 90% of customers who have made a restaurant reservation through us have gone on to purchase further higher margin products."

Lastminute.com has had a restaurant reservation platform since the company began in 1998. In the past, every reservation had to be manually confirmed with the restaurant to ensure that the customers were seated on arrival. Lastminute.com had a team of three agents working with restaurant confirmations and another team of data entry specialists in place, loading each individual restaurant onto lastminute.com's systems.

"We are constantly looking at ways to reduce and enhance profitability. When we were approached by Livebookings we soon realised that costs directly affecting our bottom line could be stripped out," continued Bower.

Partnering with Livebookings has reduced lastminute.com's workload and cost of creating a restaurant booking system. It takes care of the restaurant recruitment and data entry as well as the ongoing service and support of the system. Since teaming up with Livebookings, lastminute.com has been able to reduce the restaurant team from eight people to just 1.5 people.

Bower concluded: "Our supply manager is now able to focus on making sure lastminute.com gets the very best exclusive deals for our customers."

And for the team at London's Pearl Liang restaurant, it is more to do with increasing bookings during peak periods. Humphrey Lee, restaurant manager of Pearl Liang, commented: "The restaurant was doing well, but we wanted to increase bookings in the evenings and on weekends as well as build stronger relationships with the surrounding community. In order to do this we needed a solution that made it as easy as possible to book a table on our site. For this reason, we chose Livebookings."

Pearl Liang has been a popular choice with office workers looking for authentic Chinese cuisine. However, they struggled to generate large numbers of evening and weekend bookings as they were unable to take reservations during their working day.

The establishment added Livebookings' online, real-time booking interface to their website allowing customers to make confirmed table bookings, 24/7. They also benefit from additional listings, promotional opportunities and bookings via a range of websites in the Livebookings Network. All reservations are now received, controlled and optimised, using the web-based Livebookings Console diary.

"We used to have 10-20 online bookings per month on the website; since Livebookings was introduced in February, there has been an average of 150 bookings per month," said Lee. "This has transformed the restaurant from being a staple lunch destination to being one that is busy seven days a week."

Fore more information on the system visit www.livebookings.net

Related Articles:

• 21 Aug 2009 - Michelin-starred restaurants help Livebookings pass two million covers
• 30 Jun 2009 - Success for Livebookings' third academy event
• 18 Jun 2009 - Livebookings announces third Academy event
• 15 Apr 2009 - Livebookings Academy to launch
• 30 Mar 2009 - New marketing director at Livebookings
• 09 Feb 2009 - Livebookings experience online surge
• 07 Mar 2008 - Livebookings secures £6.5m boost by Balderton Capital
• 24 Aug 2007 - Live bookings in real-time restaurants

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